The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
When it starts getting to late fall/winter, I want to read stories about Russia. This one hit the spot. The Bear and the Nightingale provides an atmospheric read perfect for winter. You feel like you are sitting by a fire listening to fairy tales while a snowstorm rages outside.
I was fascinated by the character of Father Konstantin. Konstantin is determined to fulfill what he believes to be his calling from God and wants to purge Vasya’s village of syncretism. His belief in his own self-righteousness ends up making him and the village vulnerable.
I also didn’t realize that this not a standalone and the next book, The Girl in the Tower, comes out December 5.
Night Film by Marisha Pessl
I actually did not finish this one, but since I made it over 300 pages in, I figured I would include it anyway.
I wanted to like this book because the mystery sounded intriguing and I love mixed media storytelling. But I found it very hard to connect with the narrator and Pessl overdoes it with the italics. Using italics to emphasize words is not necessarily a bad thing, when used sparingly. But there were multiple times where more than one word was italicized in the same sentence. It got too distracting and not even the interesting mystery could keep me reading.
Seriously, authors/editors…stop overusing italics.
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